Friday, June 7, 2013

Belling, Sykes spar over Republican vote on journalism center

"A vote by the Legislature's budget-writing committee to oust a journalism center from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's campus has touched off a major spat between Milwaukee's two conservative talk-radio titans.
"Charlie Sykes, whose morning show airs on WTMJ-AM (620), ripped the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee for its early-morning vote to evict the nonpartisan Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism from its offices at UW-Madison. Sykes called the vote 'petty' and 'vindictive'.
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But fellow Milwaukee talker Mark Belling -- with an afternoon show on WISN-AM (1130) -- came out with a full-throated endorsement of the legislative panel's vote, calling it a 'brazen conflict of interest' for a news organization to receive free office space from a government entity."